Thursday, December 20, 2012

A 5°F (2.75°C) increase in summer temperature is significantly associated with congenital cataracts? Really? Now, think about that for a minute.

This study was done in New York. There’s about a 20°F difference in summer temperature between New York and Phoenix. That’s four times the 5°F they claim causes cataracts in the study group. So by their claim that if you heat up your kids will be born blind, we should be seeing lots of congenital cataracts, not only in Phoenix, but in Florida and in Cairo and in tropical areas, deserts, and hot zones all around the world … not happening, as far as I can tell.

Like I said, reality check. Sadly, this is another case where the Venn diagram of the intersection of the climate science fraternity and the statistical fraternity gives us the empty set …

There is not going to be the kind of large temperature rise that IPCC alarmists have predicted. The estimated modest rise of no more than 1 C will will actually do more good than harm. Matt Ridley, writing in the Wall Street Journal/Australian, has been talking to Nic Lewis, an expert reviewer of the leaked draft IPCC Scientific Report:

Two recent storms dropped as much as 2 feet of snow in the mountains north of Flagstaff, about 20 inches in Flagstaff and along the Mogollon Rim, and about 6 inches in Prescott. The snowfall put Flagstaff above its nearly 17-inch normal for December with the snowiest month yet to come in January.

"We still have some considerable snowpack around, so we will get snowfall on top of that," said Robert Rickey, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Flagstaff.